Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
-
[Andrew Kimery] “I paid for Ripple’s training on Resolve and FCP X when I first picked up those programs. I’m fine paying for a quality, cohesive, professionally made lesson plan that walks me through the entire program. “
The most fascinating part of this for me is how different people are regarding the type of learning modality that works best for them.
There was ONE standard process for a LONG time that defined education. Structured classroom instruction. Then non-linear everything started changing that. The web makes what I’ll call “dipping for knowledge” much easier. But since it’s not structured, its really easy for important concepts to be missed.
Then again, theres an argument that today’s students, weaned on the internet and video games, think more “non-linearly” than past generations, perhaps. They’re more adaptable. Also, possibly, way more impatient. They don’t want to wait for the pace of the instructor to get to the next topic. If they feel they’ve mastered the specific topic being delivered, they’re constantly ready to hit SKIP AHEAD to get to something more interesting. If they feel they’ve missed something, they’ll simply SKIP BACK and REWATCH.
Into the morass of traditiional vIsual learners, auditory learners, experiential learners and the like, who knows what is developing in this modern stew. (Maybe “multi-sensory synthesis learners” from monitoring 5 simultaneous feeds with disperate content?)
It’s crazy out there. And I doubt it will be getting any less so, anytime soon!
If you resonate well with the traditional “classroom instruction” style – be incredibly grateful! At least THAT has been studied for countless generations and there’s a lot of data out there on how to do it well!
FWIW.
It’s
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[David Mathis] “I hope we get a role based mixer and mask tracking this time around. Please do us a favor Bill Davis, try to curb your enthusiasm. We know how you love keyframes in X and the joy they bring you! ????”
As always, I remain unconcerned about all the things that everyone can easily imagine that X might get if there’s an update – since they represent “the known.” ????
I remain excited by the UNKNOWN, and the possibility that we might get something unexpected and new!
That way, the real excitement lies…
And since you’re apparently concerned about my relationship with keyframes in X, (thanks, didn’t know you thought about me that much!) I set and tweeked 30 or so keyframes just this morning! 20 or so via the storyline keyframe editor – and another dozen via the inspector. They all worked just fine, thanks. I know other software puts way more emphasis on keyframing, (as do many other users) so I’ll hold out hope for you that keyframes develop for you in a way that satisfies whatever you’re unhappy about. Improvement is always welcome in life!
I will simply remain content in my ignorance until such time as improvement may come along.
The way I see it, that means I actually get to be content between now and then – rather than ill-content and focused on a lack which I can’t really do anything about.
Same days spent. My way, they are spent with much less discontent.
Big win, IMO.
Oh, and regarding the Summit itself, it will be great to see so many of my friends again. As I noted about NAB years ago – in my early days, I mistakenly thought it was a show about THINGS. As I matured, I realized the “things” mattered MUCH less than the people I was meeting. The chance to re-connect with them is the essence of both the show – and, actually, life.
????
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “Bill, I truly feel your pain. But, ironically, isn’t that the exact empowerment that you’ve been a champion of?
“Yes, and I still champion it.
The thing is, even if you see (and agree with) the changes coming, it’s still up to each of us to learn how to get in front of the them and presumably capitalize on them, if we want to do more than watch them happen around us.
I saw the changes coming, but didn’t see enough of the scope or particulars of them to properly anticipate the stunning speed of those market changes. That’s just how it works. ????
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bob Zelin] “Just my opinion. And I only said positive things about Bill Davis in this post – and it’s all true. “
Gosh thanks.
Sadly, there was a part of XinTwo I was very wrong about. I assumed focusing on being concise would be enough of a market dfferentiator – and failed to notice a larger tsunami headed my way … the incredible rise of every human with a YouTube account deciding it would be cool to crank out their own software operation training modules.
A few hundred competitors working in the same space is fine. I just didn’t expect a few hundred thousand!
Need to learn something about X? While the first dozen YouTube videos on that precise topic might be dreck, probably one of the next dozen (or thousand) will be OK.
Anyone paying will find Ripple Training (Which I highly recommend) or Lynda.com (available for free at your local library.) perfectly fine for traditional learners.
I’m pursuing a new and different strategy more tuned to teaching a part of the gestalt of X that’s not typically addressed by any of these other courses.
It’s slow going, but wish me luck.
The market has spoken. Be Agile, or don’t play!
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “I think the differentiation in our industries has to be between schools that just teach and schools that teach by doing”
Uh, ALL schools teach video by doing now. All of them.
My son was the 5th grade weatherman in his grade schools morning newscast.
That was 10+ years ago and is more clear evidence for my contention that the landscape has changed.
Surely there’s not a program anywhere that doesn’t have their students making and submitting actual practical work as a core part of their curriculum.
Period.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “Bill, For someone who never went to film school (I presume) you are really doubling down on this ☺”
I’m not defending film school.
I’m defending the concept of formal education. Whether that happens in a “film school” or in a movie making collective, or in a class at your local library. I’ve learned that the more I interact with people who now MORE than I do – the smarter I become. And those are almost always the people who have STUDIED things more than I have.
Sure you can teach yourself. But it’s usually harder and less efficient than letting communities of experts come together and AGREE on the most important concepts and the curriculum that has the best and most efficient chance of success.
A “school” is simply and precisely that. A construct where the people teaching have demonstrated that they don’t just “think” they know more about topic under discussion than the rest of the class – but that theres been a systematic search to IDENTIFY those who not only know the subject, but have an ability to pass the knowledge along.
TIME is the enemy in most of these things. If you can learn to understand in 1 year in a “film school” what it might take you 4 years to learn in the field – then film school is worth it. Period.
Why? IMO, because this is NOT like the era when Speilberg and most of that group was coming up. When he was making his home made student films – he, and a couple of friends were the rare ducks with an interest in films at ALL in the mid 1960s. (I know that because my sister went to High School with him, and remembers how “odd” he and his friends were considered)
Fast forward to today, and you can’t mutter “what do you mean by B-roll?” in any crowded elevator anywhere in the world without the likelyhood of getting a bunch of reasonable answers back. The entire LANDSCAPE of the filmmaking arts is UTTERLY different than it was 50 years ago.
So if back then, what you needed to catch someones attention might have been a couple of decent “resume” films on a festival circuit – that landscape is now more like competing with 50,000 Sundance submissions a year.
That’s a FAR different game.
We all HOPE against hope that pure talent will continue to win out over anything else. But I’m worried. You watch those shows like “The Voice” and you start to notice that absolutely stunning singing isn’t the massive separator we all probably believed it was before we saw those type shows. Now a positively angelic voice is BARELY a distinguishing element between the top 5 percent of competitors.
So too, (I worry) are technical film making chops whether they be cinematography, editing, sound, or whatever. Those are now the BASELINE skills. Some harder than others to master, but ALL stuff more able to RUIN your chances, rather than elements that will make you appear BETTER than your competition. Because legions have now had decades to practice this stuff. At home. In their spare time. For fun. And the level of expertise is stupidly high overall. (Watched the top public facing Vimeo stuff lately? Holy HECK a ton of people all around the world know how to make killer content now!)
So things are just “different” today.
Yes, the kids with bigger and better ideas – and some spark of magic will still make it without ANY formal training. But there will be fewer and fewer of them, as time goes on. Not because their ideas are less valuable, but because the competitive playing field is different now.
Malcolm Gladwells “Outliers” probably said it best noting that it’s not enough to be GREAT at something. You need to be great at something when the world changes to wanting what you’re great at.
Then the world moves on.
Formal Education may be just a “power booster” today – rather than a fundamental gatekeeper. But gamers all know that power boosters are sometimes critical to avoid DYING during play.
That’s the world we live in today.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “I work with that stuff daily. The reason it’s not acceptable is that there truly is NOT 4K worth of resolution in their “4K” image. “
And there was CERTAINLY not 4k worth of resolution in any camera that recorded “The Tonight Show” in it’s decades under Carson – yet it somehow those guys made plenty of money with that substandard system.
My point is NOT that quality doesn’t matter anymore. Just that it’s not the gatekeeper to success that it used to be (if it EVER was.)
The key to success is, and always will be, the ability to turn an XX dollar investment, into a XXXX dollar return.
Do that and you get to keep going. Don’t do it, and you’re forced to stop. Be crazy good at what you do, or merely get lucky and turn XX dollars into XXXXX dollars – and suddenly you’re in a position where the cost of tools rapidly become negligible in relation to your ability to generate a return that has an even better chance of generating XXXXX dollars next time. That’s sorta the Morgan Spurlock Rule.
I saw a backstage piece featuring some shots of his operation at either NAB or ComiCon this year (can’t remember which) and his suite looked just like one I’d expect to see at NBC. And I KNOW he didn’t do SuperSize me in that environment. He GREW into it.
My point is that while there’s little to no barrier to using the best cameras you can AFTER you’ve achieved a robust measure of success, the Camera seldom was or will be the primary factor. Ever.
If it was, every project shot on Red would be more successful than every project shot on a GoPro – and we all know that just isn’t true.
And in certain markets (action sports viral videos are a good example) the better camera makes production so much more difficult as to suppress the ability to deliver the work that needs to be delivered.
Once again, this whole thing is a rehash of the old “THIS is how PROFESSIONAL production must work” tropes – and it just isn’ anymore. A particular project may absolutely justify and even require the DXL to make sense. But more gigs every day simply don’t. So viewing professionalism through one (cost level) of lens – is a lingering BAD habit, IMO. It’s kinda “*I* work with these tools – and I’m a Pro – therefore Pros must work with similar tools.
I understand that the answer to that contention should be maybe – but am always surprised by how many do NOT allow for the maybe not.
Those are the guys who keep hauling big cameras tethered to OB vans out to press conferences, while the kids come in with iPhones and get stuff on the air and on the web in a fraction of the time.
Such is life.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Herb Sevush] “I do know that at least some of the folks on your original list got absolutely nothing out of film school, because they never went to film school — Terence Malick was a philosophy major at Harvard, Lynch was a painter at the Penn Academy of Fine Arts and Burton went to an art school where he studied animation.
“Then you should call the American Film Institute folks to quibble with them – because it’s website lists them both as alumni. And it’s listed first on the general list of best film schools in the US.
To quote:
1. American Film Institute
Among the most selective film schools in America, AFI’s Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies in Los Angeles offers a two-year conservatory program where students specialize in fields including directing, producing and writing, often coming to the institute after working in the industry or having attended other schools. Its “fellows” are typically more mature (average age is 27) and benefit from speakers and teachers drawn from the highest levels of the industry, supported by the full weight of AFI itself. Comparing it to cross-town rivals UCLA and USC is a bit of apples-and-oranges, given its small size and emphasis on specialization, but AFI’s glittering parade of alumni, from David Lynch to Darren Aronofsky, remains unrivaled when it comes to auteur filmmakers. Students are guaranteed the freedom to make a thesis film and are given access to SAG members for their casts and $13,500 in financing. If you know where you’re going, AFI can get you there.
TUITION $38,416 for first year; $37,112 for second year (plus $8,033 for thesis)
DEGREES MFA, certificate of completion
NOTABLE ALUMNI Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), David Lynch (Blue Velvet), Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
“I love AFI and would be nowhere without it.” — David Lynch
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Jeremy Garchow] “There’s a great book called “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari that supposes fiction, or imagined realities/collective myths, is the very foundation of modern humans and therefore society.”
On my list as of now.
And the scary corollary now, is that if you can successfully manipulate people into accepting an fictional reality well enough – you can manipulate their behavior in reality, in return.
(shudder)
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “But viewed at 1:1 on a 4K native display with minimal compression and it’s a WORLD of difference.”
Is it?
The reality is that “destination viewing” – which has always been the primary target for high raster content – is declining in importance. Big screen use is giving way to small screen use. I’d argue that content portability has already proved to be MORE important than content image density. At least in most real world viewing situations.
Most people would rather pay $10 a month for a Netflix subscription than $50-80 for a family of 4 to go to the movies. So at least some form of commpressed delivery will rule the day for the foreseeable future (at least until the whole world gets wired with fiber, anyway.)
If carrying a 4k (or 6k or 8k lightly compressed image from camera to screen becomes “frictionless” – then sure, we’ll see it ascend. But to the extent there’s still a premium charged JUST for high raster production, I have my doubts whether or not it will end up being the key to success at all.
The audience for that type of “premium viewing experience” is kinda fickle. Which is why only a few theaters in most markets are branded and promoted based on qualitative metrics.
Ask the market. Type in “premium movie theatre” in Google for your area and you’re NOT going to get a listing of technically better projection systems – what you’ll get is a list of movie theaters with comfy chair-side delivered food service a (accommodating FEWER viewers at higher prices!) – THAT is what the industry thinks is their differentiator now.
Oh well.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.